Give contract to fix Bengaluru roads to Elcita, not BBMP contractors, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw tells Karnataka Govt

Biocon founder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw has urged the Karnataka government to hand over the contract for the upkeep of Bengaluru’s roads to Electronic City Township Authority (Elcita) after heavy rains over the last few days left many areas flooded and roads damaged.

Elcita, a statutory entity with municipal powers with taxation powers, manages the 902-acre industrial township on Bengaluru’s outskirts that is home to more than 300 companies.

Shaw, who is also the Executive Chairperson of Biocon, urged the government to give the contract to fix Bengaluru’s roads to Elcita, and not to the contractors of BBMP, the City’s civic body, in her posts on the micro-blogging platform X. She also used pictures of well-maintained roads in electronic city, one of which said, Elcita uses road metrics, an AI tool, to scan roads every fortnight for defects. This data allows them to fix issues quickly before they worsen.


“Elcita designs roads scientifically and BBMP engineers need to adopt this,” she said. Water stagnation, the caption of another picture said, causes potholes, but electronic city prevents this with clean drains, stronger drainage systems and 75 rainwater harvesting pits, keeping roads dry even during heavy rains.

“When we have Elcita, I don’t understand why we use substandard contractors in high density traffic zones,” Shaw said in her post. Another picture she posted was captioned, "While Bengaluru's Bommanahalli struggles with potholes and poor roads, the electronic city, managed by Elcita, offers a stark contrast. The secret? Smart management.”